A stay at home dad just trying not to f#ck up

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Monthly Archives: July 2012

This is what my son asked to put on the grocery list this week: Pez, batteries, and chocolate donuts. I asked if that’s all we needed from the store for the entire week—maybe we should add some milk, or some veggies—but he stuck to his guns. Pez, batteries, and chocolate donuts. Childhood obesity aside, you’ve gotta respect the kid’s whimsical outlook on life.

It reminds me of a story my mom likes to tell about how I tried to run away as a little kid. She told me I couldn’t run away because I didn’t know how to cook or tie my shoes. I said I’d eat cookies and wear loafers.

Cute, until you realize I was 12 and still couldn’t tie my shoes.

Anyway, there was a time, not too long ago, when I would’ve taken my son’s challenge and stocked the grocery cart with nothing but ding dongs and Duracells. Carpe diem, mother fuckers.

But I don’t carpe diem so much anymore. I’d like to say it’s because I’ve matured, but mostly it’s because I have to get up in the morning and spend a solid 12 hours catering to every whim of my two children. At about 6am, my kids will start asking me, “what are we going to do today, daddy?” I can hold them off with cartoons for a while, but by 7am, if I don’t have a firm plan for the day that includes a craft project and the slim possibility of them being able to pet a live lion, it’ll get “Lord of the Flies” up in here real quick.

I can remember the last time I seized the day. Actually, I can’t remember the actual seizing of the day, but I remember the day after, when I spent a significant amount of time throwing up loudly in the bathroom while my daughter cried outside the door, and repeatedly asked her brother, “what’s wrong with daddy?”

Yeah, that’ll fix any inclinations to carpe the fucking diem.

And let’s say I did some carpe diem-ing with my children, threw caution to the wind and fed the family chocolate donuts for breakfast, lunch, and snack. Do you know what happens when my kids skip their nap? The cat will get shaved.

These days, I have a new motto: Seize the tomorrow. Carpe, uh, tomorrow (sorry, the only Latin I know comes from Dead Poets Society). It takes copious amounts of planning, saving, resting, and monitoring of blood pressure levels to truly seize the tomorrow. Most of the time, I fall completely short, and only manage to seize the couch.

Ok, I know this is a negative topic and the world has enough negativity in it (See Fox News and MSNBC). But I’m stuck on a grounded airplane in 100-degree heat, so I feel like being negative right now. Tomorrow I’ll be in a better mood and I probably won’t hate any of these people. Except number 4. I’ll always hate number 4. So, here you go. People I hate right now.

1) People who read books in public. Fuck you and your free time. What, you have nothing better to do on a Tuesday at 2pm than sit in a coffee shop and read the Steve Jobs biography? Get a job.

2) People who close their eyes when they hug someone and hold on for longer than three seconds. A hug should be like taking a charge in basketball—contact should be brief and largely imagined. Better yet, why not just wave goodbye?

3) People who say, “I’m super picky about my falafel.”

4) Anyone wearing a scarf.

5) Parents who go to parenting workshops about conscious parenting. Stop trying so hard. I’m not even entirely sure what conscious parenting is, but I think it means being sober through the majority of your kid’s childhood, so count me out.

6) People who walk around the airport wearing their neck pillows. Is it really too heavy to carry in your hand?

7) Speaking of pillows, my wife hates people who insist on bringing their pillow from home when they travel. I totally agree with her, and I’ve never loved her more than when she’s bashing a complete stranger based on an insignificant detail like this.

8) People who upload Facebook photos of the vegetables they grew in their garden. Bravo, you planted a seed and watered it. I’m supposed to hit the “like” button for this? My toddlers can do this. And I’m not just bitter because everything I stick in the ground literally turns to dust. I’m not. I swear.